his
statement may seem too desiccate. It is indeed not enthusiastic. It
lacks meat.

It is my misfortune. In youth I had it: even till lately. Grief has
drawn the juices from it. I am alone and unfed, the more do I affirm
the Sanctity, the Unity, the Infallibility of the Catholic Church. By
my very isolation do I the more affirm it, as a man in a desert knows
that water is right for man: or as a wounded dog not able to walk,
yet knows the way home.

The Catholic Church is the natural home of the human spirit. The
odd perspective picture of life which looks like a meaningless puzzle
at first, seen from that one standpoint takes a complete order and
meaning, like the skull in the picture of the Ambassadors.

So much for my jejune contribution: not without value; because I
know you regard my intelligence--a perilous tool God gave me for his
own purposes; one bringing nothing to me.

But beyond this there will come in time, if I save my soul, the
flesh of these bones--which bones alone I can describe and teach. I
know--without feeling (an odd thing in such a connection) the reality
of Beatitude: which is the goal of Catholic Living.

In hac urbe lux solennis
Ver aeternum pax perennis
Et aeterna gaudia.

Yours,

H. B.

Maurice Baring wrote:

August 25: 1922.

MY DEAR GILBERT,

When I wrote to you the other day I was still cramped by the
possibility of the news not being true although I _knew_ it was true.
I felt it was true at once. Curiously enough I felt it had happened
before I saw the news in the newspaper at all. I felt that your ship
had arrived at its port. But the more I felt this, the more unwilling
I was to say anything before I heard the news from a source other
than the newspapers. I gave way to an excess, a foolish excess
perhaps of scruple. But you will, I think, understand this. In
writing to you the other day I expressed not a tenth part of what I
felt and feel and that baldly and inadequately. Nothing for years has
given me so much joy. I have hardly ever entered a church without
putting up a candle to Our Lady or to St. Joseph or St. Anthony for
you. And both this year and last year in Lent I made a Novena for
you. I know of many other people, better people far than I, who did
the same. Many Masses were said for you and prayers all over England
and Scotland in centre